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Wednesday, June 6, 2007

My first two published stories will be appearing in print for the first time on Saturday, June 9 at the Printers Row Book Fair in Chicago. They'll be available for purchase at the Twilight Tales booth. Chances are good that I'll be at the booth as well.

"Parable of the Lazy Rooster" is a story about coping with death and the relative virtues of faith vs. knowledge. While the characters are fiction, the setting of the story is the very real Red Lion Pub, an English-style pub located in Chicago. The story appears in the second edition of Tales from the Red Lion, a collection of stories written about this landmark.

"Cold Comfort" is another story about coping with death and appears in the second edition of Book of Dead Things. I plan to go more in-depth about this story in a separate entry, but it basically originated with an observation that prostitutes are almost always killed in horror stories. In fact, there are a lot of stories in which the entire plot is how a prostitute is hired by someone who turns out to be a vampire/werewolf/serial killer that kills her. I wanted to read a story in which a woman who deals with strange and and dangerous customers on a daily basis would actually be able to survive such an encounter. So I wrote one.

If you want to know more about Twilight Tales, their book line, their weekly reading series (going for over 13 years) or special events tied to Tales from the Red Lion or Book of Dead Things, check out www.twilighttales.com.

About Me

I currently have over a dozen published stories. When not writing, my day jobs have included software editor, research librarian, and desktop publisher. I'm also the website editor for Black Gate.
I'm currently a regular participant at the Bad Grammar (Chicago) reading series, the Gumbo Fiction Salon (Chicago), and the Tamale Hut Cafe (North Riverside) reading series.